Home > Disarmament > The Story of a Man Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Radio Lab

The Story of a Man Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Radio Lab

On August 6, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a Japanese man working as an engineer for Mitsubishi, was on a business trip in Hiroshima. He survived the atomic bombing that destroyed the city and killed tens of thousands of people instantly. Yamaguchi was able to make his way to the Hiroshima train station in the south of the city and got on a train to his hometown of Nagasaki. Three days later, on August 9, he was in Nagasaki when the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb there. In each case, he was within two miles of ground zero.

Mr. Yamaguchi, outspoken about the abolition of nuclear weapons, lived until 2010, 65 years after he experienced two nuclear attacks within the span of three days. He died at the age of 93.